Willie Nelson celebrated his 90th birthday with two nights of great music at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. The two-night stand featured a laundry list of artists that included up-and-comers, established hitmakers, and icons on par with Nelson’s hard-won acclaim. The highlights of the concert series, though, came when Nelson took the stage to perform alongside other celebrants. Watch him share the stage with bluegrass phenom Billy Strings for “California Sober” below.
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Strings took a seat beside Nelson on the Hollywood Bowl stage. After telling the Red-Headed Stranger “Happy Birthday,” he introduced the song. “Me and Willie just had a song that we made, we’re gonna try to scrub it out for y’all. It’s called ‘California Sober,’” he said before signaling the drummer to begin the song. Then, Nelson’s longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael kicked things off with a solo before they moved into the first verse.
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Nelson and Strings released “California Sober” on April 28, 2003, the day before Nelson’s birthday. This also means they released the song just days before they performed it at the Hollywood Bowl.
Willie Nelson and Billy Strings are “California Sober”
Sonically, “California Sober” is an excellent marriage between the styles of Strings and Nelson. Throughout the verses, they bring plenty of Texas country style with pulsing drums and a bluesy key section. However, when it’s time to play a solo, Strings digs deep into the lightning-fast bluegrass picking his fans know and love.
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The song borrows its title and meaning from a phrase used widely in the substance abuse recovery community. “California sobriety” is an ambiguous term. For some, it means cutting out alcohol and hard drugs and replacing them with cannabis and psychedelic substances. Others claim to be “California sober” when using cannabis and alcohol in moderation while abstaining from harder substances.
In the song, both singers look back at their wilder days and reveal that they’ve walked away from booze, pills, cocaine, and other hard drugs. Instead, they sing about the virtues of replacing all of that with the devil’s lettuce.
Featured Image by Mike Coppola/WireImage
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